Scott Brown is in the running to be the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the former U.S. senator said President-elect Donald Trump told him Friday.

“He said he’s making his highest recommendation to his committee that they consider me,” said Brown, who endorsed Trump shortly before the presidential primary in New Hampshire, where Brown ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2014. Trump won a runaway victory in the state.

Brown served three years in the senate, filling Ted Kennedy’s seat, after his death. He was defeated in the 2012 election by Elizabeth Warren.

Brown, a military veteran who won a stunning 2010 Senate victory in Massachusetts, said Trump called him on his cellphone during a flight back from Dallas, where Brown had attended a housing forum.

“He said, ‘How do you think you can help me?’” Brown said.

The former senator said he listed housing and veterans’ issues as his passion.

Brown’s revelation Friday came as Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump has been staging his transition meetings, has been awash in speculation about top hires, opening policy initiatives, and the contours of a presidency many never saw coming.

Trump had promised to make some immediate changes in the way the VA system was being operated, from firing or disciplining those VA officials who were failing to adequately carry out their duties, to allowing veterans more choice in which medical facilities they used for care.

Brown’s qualifications for the job, besides his time as a senator, includes more than 30 years serving with the National Guard.

In 2010, during the August congressional recess, Brown was gone for two weeks, serving part of his time in Afghanistan, during predeployment training.

He told reporters at Logan Airport when he returned that the soldiers he visited were worried about the pace of President Obama’s troop drawdown in Afghanistan. He spoke of the 116-degree heat as he ate with troops while dressed in full body armor.

Brown also wrote in his memoir of enduring a mortar attack while at Bagram Airfield near Kabul.

“Another blast came, this one maybe 700 or 800 meters away, close enough to glimpse the bright flash of light,” he wrote. “A bunch of us took off at a dead run toward a nearby bunker. Three hours later, my flight was in the sky.”

Brown still has to be nominated. He is, like others at this time, another name the Trump camp has floated.

Still, he’s hopeful that if and when the time comes, his former colleagues with the Senate will favor him with confirmation to the post.